The Welcoming Battle

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{Thread takes place on the Galleon which is currently above the islands}

Ryota grinned to himself as he relaxed on one of the side railings of the Galleon while he waited for Carmine to arrive. He'd had to put off there spar for a bit due to Carmine not being at one-hundred percent and having the tournament to compete in but now however the tournament was over and it was time to see how strong Carmine really was as well it was time for the crew as a whole to know that Carmine really was apart of the crew as while the message of Carmine being apart of the crew was slowly spreading amongst the crew Ryota was relatively sure that many didn't quite believe it as Carmine hadn't had his spar yet.

The fact that 'Big' or Marcus had already had his spar and had done a reasonable job considering he'd been up up against Keyra and for the most part had no real clue how to use most of his power. Keyra had however managed to get him to produce a energy wave during the fight proving that the man definitely had a chance of going far if he could catch on THAT quickly. I might have to take a bit of time to spar with him as well, he's definitely not going to learn anything from being told and I'm probably one of the best to beat the knowledge into him. Ryota thought to himself while also mentally ticking off a few others that would be good sparing partners to get Marcus' ability's up and running.

"Hey Ryo" Ryota opened his eyes as he heard Keyra's voice call out to him from up above. Ryota raised an eyebrow and prepared to defend himself as he noted that she was 'standing'(more floating) just above him. "I thought you were going to go out and get the stuff so I can fix the ship." She said giving him a look of mild annoyance that Ryota knew was likely a bit forced on her part. "I will, I will, but I'm gonna be fighting Carmine once he shows up." Ryota said with a shrug earning an interested look from Keyra. "You're going to fight him? This should be interesting." Keyra said with a smirk as she pushed higher into the air and then released her flight allowing her to land on the railing next to Ryota.

"Why does your interest in my fight make me worry that you know something that I don't?" Ryota asked giving her a confused look to which Keyra simply shrugged and gave him a grin. Groaning to himself Ryota then sighed and continued waiting for Carmine to show up. I've got a bad feeling about this..

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Carmine approached the Captain, Oda in tow. The two men had returned to the Galleon on the day beforehand after the end of the Scavenger tournament, and Oda had been convinced to join the crew as well. In the meantime, Carmine had taken Keyra aside and told her his secret - that he was an android. She'd taken a pretty deep fascination with him, and agreed to help repair him for the next day so he could properly perform his welcoming spar. She was definitely a capable mechanic, and had promised to keep her mouth shut. He was hoping his trust hadn't been unfounded.

Oda had asked Carmine to watch the spar, and Carmine saw no harm in it. Carmine placed a hand on Ryota's shoulder.

"I'm here, Captain. You wanted to see me?" Carmine wore a snarky grin. He knew full well what was going on, and he knew that the Captain knew.

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Ryota chuckled as he heard Carmine, he pulled himself up into a sitting position on the rail and grinned. "Yeah, you see I've been nice and let you delay your welcoming spar for now but this has simply gone on too long." Ryota said fixing Carmine with a incredibly fake glare bade even less serious by his grin. "I was thinking we could have it now, you seem fit to fight and heck you've even recruited someone yourself. Some of the crew knows you've joined up but without a spar a decent amount of them will think it's just rumors until they meet you themselves or are told my me." Ryota said as he hopped off of the railing and cracked his back. Perhaps after his fight with Carmine he could arrange for Oda's fight to be next just to get it over with. After sensing Oda's strength Ryota was even more anxious for his fight with Carmine to begin as Oda was pretty strong himself and he'd evidently lost to Carmine not once but twice.

Ryota nodded to Keyra signaling her to prepare the ship's shields for the fight as he was relatively sure that Carmine would be up for the fight now and even if for some reason he wasn't then there was always Oda's fight which the shields would be needed for and most likely while that was going on he'd end up getting Carmine whatever healing he might need that could require him to hold the fight of for even longer. Keyra nodded back to him as she headed off to set up the shields. "Also Oda would you be interested in having your fight afterwards? I could probably get Keyra to do it since assuming Carmine is ready I may not be up for yet another fight afterwards." Ryota said as a multicolored bird landed on his shoulder.

"Ah there you are, I'd wondered where you disappeared to. I was a bit worried that Kiga had gotten his hands on you and made you apart of one of his stews." Ryota said as he patted the bird on the head. "Raww Evil bird evil bird! Gonna kill it!" The bird screeched out in what may have been an attempt to mimic Keyra. Ryota simply chuckled at the bird. "Go find somewhere safe to perch. I'll get you something to eat later." He said and surprisingly enough the parrot nodded and flew off up into the crows nest.

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Carmine smiled as the Captain explained himself. He'd known that this spar was going to have to happen ever since joining the crew, and he was excited for it. He could tell that Ryota was stronger than him, but not by that wide of a margin. He might not win this one, but Carmine knew he'd have a lot of fun with it.

Oda gave Ryota a thumbs up, ready to spar whenever the opportunity arose.

"Weird bird you got there, Captain."

Carmine didn't wait for a response as the bird flew up to the crow's nest, but instead hopped up off of the ground, shifted his weight to one side while tucking in his legs, and planted his left hand on the ground before kicking out sideways hard towards Ryota's stomach. A sucker punch (or kick, really), but hey - they were pirates after all.

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"Eh I suppose but I like hi- ARG" Ryota groaned in pain as Carmine his him dead in the stomach causing him to stumble back a bit into the railing. He'd been paying perhaps a bit too much attention to the bird and had only barely caught a glimpse of Carmine's attack before it landed. Usually he could sense a person powering up for a sneak attack of that sort and react accordingly. He'd forgotten that he couldn't sense Carmine at all. With a grin Ryota shook his head. "Well at least I know your taking this seriously." He said before launching himself off of the railing and directly for Carmine.

Once the relatively small gap was closed between himself and Carmine he would begin with a quick flurry of kicks and punches, no need to start off with anything really fancy and at least for the moment he didn't have any need for his sword as Carmine didn't actually have a weapon of his own to defend himself with and while that would be something fun to take advantage of later on it wasn't how Ryota wanted to start things. For now he just wanted to see how well Carmine would block his attacks.

Luckily just as Ryota began his attack on Carine Keyra managed to bring up the ships's shields causing a momentary pulse of energy which also served to draw the attention of a large number of the crew as they knew that the shields being brought up either meant an attack or a fight and considering the lack of enemy ships there was really only one option.

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Carmine bobbed and weaved out of the way of Ryota's punches, and blocked most of his kicks. However, one kick landed squarely behind Carmine's knee as he attempted to shift his stance for a counterattack. The knee dropped to the ground hard, landing Carmine in an awkwardly twisted position.

He processed his options quickly. A rising uppercut from this position would carry almost no real force behind it, and would be easily dodged or deflected. A rising bicycle kick would deliver more impact but was much more open to counterattack. He couldn't generate enough leverage to deliver a proper punch to Ryota's lower body. His only option was a move he'd seen used once or twice in a somewhat unorthodox fighting style.

He planted both hands firmly on the ground and kicked his legs out wide, and used his legs to spin himself around like a top - like he were breakdancing. After one full rotation he threw his legs out against Ryota's knees, attempting to take his legs out from under him before pushing up with his hands and flipping himself upright.

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Ryota grinned as he finally landed a good hit in on Carmine and then suddenly cringed as a momentary pain shot through his leg due to the toughness of... whatever Carmine was made of. As Ryota pulled back from the attack trying to catch a glimpse of whatever armor Carmine had to be wearing he saw nothing causing him a bit more confusion as he was used to humans not having such tough bodies. Sure a few he'd encountered were strong enough that there muscles could put up a decent amount of resistance against a hit but that was something different entirely, it was like kicking a wall.

Ryota raised an eyebrow as he saw Carmine move to make his attack however he was attacking in a style Ryota wasn't exactly familiar he looked like he was preparing to do some sort of odd dance move. Not really wanting to see if this was his way of getting up or actually an attack Ryota disengaged from Carmine in the fastest way that he could. By flying directly upwards. Ryota let out a breath of relief as he watched Carmine make a sweeping motion with most of his entire body, a move that would have easily taken him off of his legs considering he wasn't entirely sure how to properly defend against it. "Two things, one that was a rather interesting way of attacking, and two WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU MADE OF! When I kicked you it felt like I'd kicked a damn wall!" Ryota said as he zipped over to and landed on the other side of the deck.

Once over there he would take a moment to charge up his energy before unleashing five relatively weak balls of energy at Carmine after doing so Ryota would begin charging up for a larger energy blast. If Carmine moved to block the balls of energy heading towards him Ryota would then draw his sword and launch the slightly stronger blast through a rift which would lead behind Carmine. Otherwise he'd simply launch the larger attack at Carmine normally without and rift based trickery.

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Carmine laughed gruffly as Ryota took to the sky. He took the opportunity to plant himself more firmly on the deck of the ship.

"I'll answer that question if you can beat me, Captain!"

And then there were energy balls. Once again Carmine cursed himself for not having any ranged capabilities, and flipped sideways several times to dodge the smaller attacks. However, when the bigger attack came his way he knew he didnt have enough time to dodge. Instead he crossed his arms and girded his loins, blocking the attack but taking some damage in the process. He skidded backwards across the Galleon's deck, ending up almost entirely on the opposite side of the ship from the Captain.

This was no good. Ryota could easily just keep up this kind of assault and Carmine wouldn't get a single hit in. Then there was that rift technique he'd used in the bar. Carmine was in hot water, and he knew it. He was going to have to close the gap and hope for the best. He beat his feet against the deck and leapt, hard, leg outstretched in a flying kick directed at Ryota's head. He had absolutely no contingency plan for if he missed. He was banking on Ryota not wanting Carmine to go careening off of the Galleon to fall to his doom on the islands below.

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Ryota grinned as his blast pushed Carmine across part of the deck, now that he was fairly certain that Carmine wasn't entirely normal by human standards due to the response he'd given and of course the kick from earlier Ryota decided to try keeping things at range for a little while, at the very least to see how Carmine would respond since he he knew practically nothing of Carmine's fighting style. As he noticed Carmine starting to close the gap between them Ryota began throwing out energy blasts as quickly as he could however each was dodged or otherwise rendered ineffective.

Ryota scowled slightly as Carmine drew closer and then his eyes widened as Carmine launched into the air coming in for what would likely be a very powerful flying kick considering all the momentum he'd built up from his run across the deck. Knowing he was near the railing Ryota knew only one truly viable defense against this attack that wouldn't end in pain for him. He snatched his sword from its sheath and as he drew it sliced open a rift right in front of himself his large arc opening a rift large enough for mot anyone to walk though with ease. The exit to the rift however opened on the deck of the Galleon.

Assuming Carmine had no way to avoid flying through the Rift Ryota would take a quick moment to charge up the strongest blast of energy he could muster in such a short time and then launch it through the rift hoping to catch Carmine as he shot up into the air. Ryota was more hoping to catch Carmine before the other man started flying as he was unaware that Carmine couldn't fly without aid from his motorcycle.

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Carmine blinked as he found himself rocketing into the air. Damn that rift sword! He turned around to look back down at the deck of the Galleon to find himself facing an energy blast, and it was coming on fast.

Almost without thinking, Carmine tossed the capsule for the Cyclone out, and it popped into existence right in front of the blast. Yes, it would wreck the motorcycle, but he could repair it later and Carmine highly doubted he'd be given an opportunity to use it in this fight anyway. The bike hit the blast and together they caused a rather smoky explosion despite the fact that most of the Cyclone was going to be reusable - it would just need a number of new engine parts and a new fuel system most likely.

Carmine used the wreckage to realign himself and vault back down towards the deck at Ryota. He spun like a drill in the air before somersaulting, flying feet fist towards the Captain as he loaded up his Typhoon Kick.

"DRILLING TYPHOON KICK!"

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Ryota watched as his blast quickly caught up with Carmine however it seemed that once Carmine realized what was going on he pulled something out and with a poof of smoke there was a motorcycle between him and the blast the vehicle was struck and the resulting explosion produced enough smoke to effectively blind Ryota to what was going on with Carmine. Closing the rift Ryota prepared himself for whatever Carmine was planning to do now. Why didn't he just fly out of the way? Ryota thought to himself as he scanned the smoke for any signs of movement.

Suddenly something burst from the smoke at an incredible speed and had it not been for him shouting Ryota would not have realized that it was actually Carmine. Ryota wasn't entirely sure what to expect from this 'Drilling Typhoon Kick' other than that if it hit he was fairly certain he was going to be in a rather significant amount of pain due to the speed that he was coming in at.

Deciding to take things up a notch in order to defend himself Ryota raised his arms in a defensive position and waited for Carmine to get closer once he was within a few seconds of impact Ryota let out a roar as his aura erupted around him. "MAKAIOKEN!" he shouted as his muscles tensed for impact. Then Carmine actually hit and something that Ryota hadn't exactly expected happened. The impact caused an powerful explosion, had it just been a kick Ryota was fairly certain while he would have gotten pushed back to the rail he would have been mostly fine. Now however...

Ryota let out a string of curses as he was sent flying from the blast into the railing which strained to sustain itself with the power of the ships shields but quickly yielded behinds the force of the explosion and Ryota. The rainling cracked and split as Ryota contined flying all the way into the space just outside of the Galleon and against the protective barrier thankfully this one was strong enough to stop him.

"That... sucked..." Ryota groaned as he pushed himself off of the barrier and into the open space. Shaking his aching arms Ryota turned to look at Carmine. "Not gonna lie, that hurt. A lot. I think I'm gonna have to take this a bit more seriously." Ryota said giving Carmine a grin as he reactivated the Makaioken which had faded at some point during the crash. "GALLEON FIRE!" Ryota shouted as he cut a rift into the open air right in front of himself aimed in the general direction of Carmine, as the rift opened the Galleon launched a blast from one of it's main guns. As the blast had no real direction it simply fired forward, right into the second half of the rift Ryota had opened sending a large burst of energy through Ryota's rift and right at Carmine.

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Carmine backflipped off of the impact on Ryota, landing on the deck and watching his handiwork. He smiled, Ryota had definitely felt it, if not been felled by it.

That whole Makaioken thing made Carmine a little nervous though. If it was anything like it sounded, Carmine was going to be in real trouble real fa - OH GOD SHIP LASER COMING HIS WAY.

Carmine hadn't given himself enough time to dodge anything with all of his gloating, but he did have enough time to cut loose. He raised a hand to the sky and activated his Limiter Override before tucking in and blocking as well as he could against the Galleon Fire.

He stood for a moment while the smoke cleared, and then dashed hard across the deck. His aura finally glowed orange hot, the first real visual cue of his power that Ryota would have seen. As he closed the gap, Carmine made a move as if to load up for a punch.

And then he fanned his fingers at the sides of his face.

"PHOTON FLARE!"

From behind Carmine's eyes flashed an intense and blinding light. Oda cursed somewhere off on the sidelines - something that sounded like 'Oh not again!'.

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Ryota grinned as he watched Carmine defend himself against the Galleon's blast most usually just tried to move out of the way when he used the Galleon's blasts in battle but evidently Carmine was tough enough to just take it. He raised an eyebrow as Carmine was suddenly surrounded by a glowing orange aura.

Ryota prepared to defend himself as Carmine brought his hands up to his face, perhaps he has some sort of eye based energy attack? As Ryota ran through a few possibility's suddenly everything got REALLY bright and he let out a grunt of pain as he closed his eyes. Shaking his head Ryota slowly opened his eyes to see if the light had faded... and it had... along with everything else. Well fuck.... this isn't good Ryota thought to himself as he hoped the blindness would be temporary. Most likely it would be considering that he'd managed to close his eyes not THAT long after the 'photon flash'.

Shaking his head Ryota tried crossed his arms over his chest trying to look as if he'd been unaffected by the attack. He looked around at the various areas where he heard groans of pain from those who had been watching and hadn't managed to shield there eyes beforehand. "Nice trick, Carmine. It's a good thing I've been hit with worse." Ryota said while still trying to act as if he wasn't completely blind. Hopefully Carmine would take the bait and respond so that he could get an idea where he was hiding. While he waited Ryota began charging energy into his right hand forming a dense ball of glowing energy, after this fight he'd really have to invest some time into creating a few new techniques as what he had now while good wasn't particularly much.

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Carmine wasn't fooled. He didn't doubt that Ryota had been hit with worse and more damaging techniques, considering where he was from, but the man, at least for the brief moment, was blind as a bat. He smiled.

But there was absolutely no time to waste. His Limiter Override was running, and that was a ticking clock. Ryota had already formed an attack, and as soon as he had any indicator to Carmine's location, he was going to use it. He had to gain a lasting upper hand, and NOW.

He leapt forward and slightly up, giving him enough lift and force to sail a couple of feet over Ryota's head, at which point he spun forward, swinging his leg out into a bicycle kick. He'd never loaded up two Typhoon Kicks in such rapid succession, and thus he wasn't sure if his leg would come off doing this, but sometimes you take a risk, eh?

He spoke his attack more quietly, but loud enough for Ryota to hear, at a very specific moment - at the moment right before his heel drove itself into the back of the Captain's head.

"Surprise Bicycle Typhoon Kick."

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Ryota blinked a few times trying to get his vision back faster hoping for even just a blurry outline of the world around himself rather than the complete and utter nothingness that he was getting now. He had no clue where Carmine was and evidently Carmine either hadn't bought his attempt to not look like he was blind or simply wasn't up for talking now. Either way this was a problem.

After a few moments of just pumping energy into the attack and trying to get his vision to return Ryota felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and got a sudden feeling of dread, as if something really bad was about to happen. And then he felt it the strange vaguely warm feeling of another persons aura. The last thing that ran through Ryota's mind even before he heard Carmine was one simple word. "Fuck."

And then he felt Carmine's foot slam into the back of his head followed quickly by an explosion that sent him flying across the Galleon's deck. Ryota groaned in pain as he crashed into the railing once again, that one had felt even worse than the first. Well at the very least he now knew that Carmine's Typhoon kick could A) be preformed differently and B) be made stronger. As Ryota rolled over he noted the first positive thing since he'd gotten hit by that Photon Flash. He could see again though everything was spinning which was probably a bad sign but at least he could see.

Pulling himself up onto his feet once again shaking his head a bit which managed to get rid of the spinning but brought on a massive headache. "Yup, recruiting you was definitely a good plan." Ryota said as he rubbed the back of his head where the kick had initially struck him feeling that he was indeed bleeding from the impact. Wiping the blood off on his coat Ryota grinned at Carmine as he used the railing to keep himself steady. Taking a few breaths Ryota shook himself again and found that he could stand properly again.

Taking another breath Ryota grinned as he began powering up. "I don't think I need to even hold back against you Carmine it probably would have been a better plan for me to have started out going at you with all of my power but I suppose that's something I'll just have to remember for next time." he said with a laugh before his energy exploded around him once again causing the damaged railing to fracture further before simply exploding. The rest of the ship remained unharmed though the shields seemed to be straining a bit to keep up under the effect of the transformation.

Finally with another flare of his aura Ryota capped himself off at his full power as his black and gold aura flared around him and streaks of energy-lightning shot off of him in random directions. "Congrats Carmine, your the first person that I've ever needed to use my full power against for the welcoming fight" Ryota said with a chuckle before racing forward towards Carmine, once he closed the gap between himself and Carmine he would unleash a flurry of kicks and punches in order to see how well Carmine could hold up against his new level of strength.